Honk News (Long Beach, CA) – A Texas man has been sentenced to a lengthy prison term for the abduction and repeated assault of a 13-year-old girl, who compassionate bystanders ultimately rescued after they spotted her displaying a “Help Me” sign from the rear of a vehicle.
Steven Robert Sablan, 63, admitted to kidnapping the girl at gunpoint in July 2023 in San Antonio and transporting her nearly 1,400 miles to California, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.
On Friday, he received a 35-year prison sentence.
Sablan, hailing from Cleburne, Texas, abducted the girl on July 6, 2023, and subsequently traveled over 1,000 miles to Long Beach, California.
Authorities reported that the individual sexually assaulted the child during the abduction and employed a firearm to intimidate and dominate her.
The US attorney’s office stated that he had “no legal custody or familial relationship to the victim” at that time.
After three days, the teenager was saved when compassionate bystanders alerted authorities upon spotting the youth with a sign that said “Help Me.”
“Good Samaritans were in a parking lot when they saw the victim in a parked vehicle holding up a piece of paper with ‘help me’ written on it,” according to a July 2023 press release from the Long Beach Police Department. “They acknowledged the note and immediately called 9-1-1.”
Authorities report that the girl was seen mouthing “help me” to bystanders while Sablan was in a laundromat.
During the incident, Sablan inquired about the victim’s age, to which she responded that she was 13, according to officials.
He subsequently assured her that she could embark on a cruise to see a friend in Australia, but mentioned that she “needed to do something for him first,” as stated in a July 2023 release from the US Attorney’s Office.
“[Sablan] violently abducted a child and repeatedly sexually assaulted her while driving her thousands of miles from her home,” prosecutors said in a sentencing memorandum. “And while [Sablan] spent days abusing her for his own pleasure, her parents agonized over their missing child, fearing the worst. The worst was not far from reality.”